Tag: Jacqueline Charles

Friday, Sept. 21, saw yet another in a series of large demonstrations across Haiti against what many protestors called “the corruption of the Martelly regime.” Not a single U.S. news outlet filed a story in English on the demonstrations. Most conspicuously absent in their coverage was The Miami Herald.

Mathias O is 34 years old. He is one of about 600,000 people still homeless from the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti. He lives with his wife and her 2-year-old under a homemade shelter made out of several tarps. They sleep on the rocky ground inside. The side tarp walls are reinforced by pieces of cardboard boxes taped together. Candles provide the only inside light at night. There is no running water. No electricity. They live near a canal and suffer from lots of mosquitoes.

Nicolas Rossier conducted an exclusive interview with former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in forced exile in Johannesburg. Aristide concludes: "We are poor – worse than poor because we are living in abject poverty and misery. But based on that collective dignity rooted in our forefathers, I do believe we have to continue fighting in a peaceful way for our self-determination, and if we do that, history will pay tribute to our generation." Rally for democracy in Haiti and Aristide's return Wednesday, Nov. 17, 5 p.m., Montgomery & Market, San Francisco.

"Look at what Haiti's tyrants did to me!" said the priest who could have been president: The Haitian oligarchy jailed him, the Catholic church denied him health coverage, the hospital denied him care, the Miami Herald denigrated his memory. The Bay Area memorial for Father Jean-Juste is Saturday, June 27, 7 p.m., at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison, Berkeley.